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Thursday, June 21, 2012

Cherrytime Capsicum Life-Cycle

The cherrytime capsicum has been the most reliable and prolific capsicum this year together with banana capsicum compare to the other varieties we planted last warm season. The cherrytime capsicum produces small size capsicum fruit with average of 5cm. The ripen fruits is sweet and have a roundish shape with a pointed end which looks like a cute heart-shape sometime. This capsicum become more sweeter when grill or roasted which I found out this year experimenting in the kitchen. It goes nicely with grill yakitori/kebab alternating between meat and cherrytime capsicum which our family enjoy.

The cherrytime capsicum can be left over winter (frost-free area) in the patch. The photo below are 2 plants of cherrytime capsicum which still have some unripen fruit left living through last winter (photo taken early winter last year 2011). Snails or Slugs sometime munch on the capsicum leaves during winter. As you can see, no protection is provided for this cherrytime capsicum plants during winter.

This is one of the same plants above with some fruits ripening earlier this month of June (early winter). This plant is going through its 2nd winter now.

When I tried growing this cherrytime capsicum the first time with the seeds I bought from Eden Seeds company I have trouble germinating the seeds. The germination rate was really poor about 20%. However, we saved some seeds last year.

Last warm season I sowed the left-over seeds I bought from
Eden seeds and our own home-saved cherrytime capsicum at the same week.
The left-over seeds only give me one plant. Amazingly, the seeds that we saved, germination was very good. Since we had many seeds, I simply sprinkled home-saved cherrytime capsicum seeds in one straight line about 40 cm long. I was not expecting a good germination rate that time because it was just the first generation of seeds we saved. But suddenly in a few days I have so many seedlings sprouted closely together with hardly any gap. I guess that the home-saved seeds has adapt ed well with our garden micro-climate here. This is one of the main reason saving seeds is fun and give a sense of a small achivement from the garden.

The cherrytime capsicum grows well in container too. In this cold weather, this cherry capsicum plant is growing along with carrots in the same container saving space and makes it productive. In summer, the cherry capsicum plant was growing along with a different plant but I can't remember which at the moment (I think it was watermelon plants).

Now, we are in Royal Children Hospital in Melbourne since last week Wednesday because Rayyan needed his 3rd cardiac surgery. He had his surgery last Friday and he is really recovering well. He had an open heart surgery but this is the first time the medical staff did not stop the heart while they did the surgery. Amazingly from experience this time he does recovery very fast and will soon be a troublemaker again. He made the nurses busy by pulling out his wires and putting it on his teddy which makes his heart monitor alarms beeping continuously. Many of the nurses and medical staffs remember Rayyan from his previous cardiac surgeries and was surprised Rayyan a boy now and not a baby like before. I have limited access with internet as I am using the hospital resource centre computer at the moment. Hopefully next week, we will back home.

28 comments:

Thanks for the post on cherrytime capsicum. I managed to get 3 seedlings from maybe 4 seeds I sprinkled into a polybag, so it seems yes, the germination rate is high even in my garden, 75% :-) thanks Diana. But 1 of them got lopped off by accident by the guy who cuts the grass. So now only 2 seedlings left. I do hope they are doing well because I have been away... I can't wait to try saving the seeds like you do.

Diana... good morning from Japan... we pray that your son Rayyan will do well after the surgery... also, thank you for the capsicum seeds... I could germinate only one plant and it is doing well... shall be posting some photos later on... I look forward to seeing their fruits as they do look cute...

hi dan, sorry about rayyan and wish him a speedy recovery and hope you can manage well.i like your healthy looking cherry capsicum pics, can imagine them being roasted... yummy. the plants look small but produce great quantity harvest-must be very healthy.'take care and have a nice day

Speedy recovery to Rayyan. Hard thing for little guys to have to go through but they are tougher than we are I think sometimes.

That looks like a great pepper plant and your saved seed is producing a variety that will grow even more vigorously in your particular climate. I really need to be more vigilant about my seed saving efforts.

I enjoyed your heart story.And like what you mentioned both have a success story to tell.Hope that you will have more yield in your heart-shaped capsicum and that Rayyan will get better and back to his usual bouncy self again.Take care.

Cher~There are sometime trial and error with the companion thing. But its fun.

Mark~He is recovering well, the doctors are happy with him.

Liz~ I am saving some for you and will post to you as soon as possible.Hope the seeds grow well in your garden this coming warm season. Its been busy and next weeks seems to fill up with appointments everyday.

Sue~Rayyan is recovering very fast, too fast I think, he is already up with mischief. I have to constantly remind him to take things slow or be careful if not we will be back in the ward.

Rainfield61~Thank you. The operation went well.

Katie~I am glad that the peppers thrive in their second year and produces more than its first year which is a surprise. Probably in the first year it was spending more time to grow and adapt with the weather.

Malar~We came back from Melbourne this week and was so surprised to see how much growth happening in the garden.

Lrong~You have colder weather than us here I think in spring. But now that it is summer in Japan, hopefully the capsicum plant will put on more growth faster.

Cookingvarities~Terima kasih, I am recovering little by little but better than previous weeks. Have a nice weekend!

Sri Ranjani~I hope the second generation of this capsicum seeds that I am collecting will give more improvement and the plants is more adapted to our micro-climate here.

KitsapFG~He is a strong boy, very determined and can be very stubborn sometime. He have good fighting spirit in him. Now that he is almost 3 years old, it was a bit of a problem to console him in ICU after the medical staff weaned him earlier and waking him up. He was very upset especially he had water and food restriction. Not happy because he was so thirsty.

JGH~My cucumber seed-saving project is still not doing well. Not easy with the cross-pollination. The cucumbers are also very tempting can't leave them on the plant to collect seeds :).

Tina~Thank you for the wishes. Lots of anxieties but it is something that I will have to go through again. I also have confidant that the medical technologies will also be much better when the time comes for another surgery again.

Anonymous~thanks.

Baguznet~I have never seen this capsicum variety in the market except from my own garden ;-). Market usually sells big ones, maybe size matters to customers perhaps.

Lena~He was discharged much faster this time which is good.

Jody~Thank you. He is doing really well.

James~Rayyan is his usual self again. We also had some cherrytime capsicum fruits to harvest when we came back 2 days ago. Hope we get to our normal routine again.

We have started gardening for about 4 years now since I had my first pregnancy scan with Rayyan and he was diagnose with cardiac defect.We want our children to know where veggies come from and eat vegetable which is chemical free. Furthermore taste the true flavour of heirloom vegetables and fruits. Our gardening adventure started in Adelaide (blog archive 2010-2012) with Mediterranean / Warm Temperate Climate. Now we grow our own food in Tropical Climate in a green zone 20 less kilometre away from the Malaysia capital city Kuala Lumpur.